a video game history lesson + super awesome megaman t shirt
video games were painful back in the day. you see, before developers were able to put video games on cds, dvds, and blu ray discs - all which have abundant storage space, they had to cram them into cartridges. these cartridges were pretty primitive and could not hold very much information, which is why back in the day graphics and music were so horrible.
now i could easily deal with crappy graphics and the music grew on me, i was a kid back then, and hdtv, hdmi cables, 1080p, dolby and digital surround sound were all very far into the future. what i couldnt deal with was how frustrating games were in the 80s and 90s. you see, typically, a gamer is satisfied with about 20-30 hours of play time on a single game, or they feel cheated out of their $60. now this is not a problem because developers can simply make the game longer, since the media (dvd and blu ray now) has so much capacity.
back in the day, this was impossible with cartridges. they simply couldnt just add more length to a game, so instead, they made games nearly impossible, especially for little kids. i mean, i never beat super mario brothers until i was in college - too much hand-eye coordination needed.
i was reminded of this when playing megaman 9 (just released on ps3). see, instead of updating the game, capcom brought it back to its roots, so what you have is a level-wise short, but impossible game. how impossible you ask? lets just say that i died 3 times without making it past the first level. i almost threw my dualshock 3 into my hdtv in frustration.
which brings me to todays megaman inspired t shirt design. megaman sucks - not the game, but the character himself. he is weak, starts out every game with a dinky pea shooter, and every single bad guy is stronger, faster and takes more trickeries to beat.
this would not have happened if say, the game centered around mega ninja man. i mean with mega ninja man i could probably finish the game off and kill all the baddies in like 2 hours.
side note on the zazzle store. some of you may not know this, but i leave all of my shirts fully customizable on the store. this means that you can take one of my designs, put it on a mens/womens/kids shirt dark or light, and change all of the text. you can even choose the shirt material, 100% cotton, vintage shirt, heavy duty, etc. the shirts that i have predesigned on the webstore are just a simple guide to what the shirts could look like.
tags: 1080p, 8 bit, blu ray, capcom, cartridge, cds, design, developers, dualshock 3, dvds, hdmi, hdtv, impossible, mega man, megaman, retro, store, super mario brothers, t shirt, video games